Archive for June, 2015
This video is one of the most intense, emotional and unforgettable videos I’ve ever seen. I won’t be surprised if I never forget it:
Representatives for the 9 victims of the Charleston church shooting were given the option of making a statement to the confessed gunman. While some representatives chose not to make a statement, the representatives who spoke through their pain and forgave the shooter despite their intense pain. Here’s a sampling of their statements:
“You have killed some of the most beautifulest people that I know,” Felecia Sanders, mother of victim Tywanza Sanders, told Dylann Roof, speaking from the courtroom. “Every fiber in my body hurts … May God have mercy on you.”
The daughter of Ethel Lance, another of the nine victims in the Wednesday night attack at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, had a similar message for the 21-year-old alleged killer, who police believe attended a Bible study meeting at the church, where he was embraced by strangers only to open fire on them for no apparent reason. “You hurt a lot of people,” she said, “But I forgive you.”
“Repent. Confess. Give your life to the one who matters the most, Christ, so He can change your ways no matter what happens to you and you’ll be OK,” said Anthony Thompson, who represented the family of victim Myra Thompson.
Thursday, the nation heard too often from politicians pandering to their political supporters during a time of grief. It’s understatement to say that they disgraced themselves. Hillary Clinton and President Obama were particularly offensive in that respect.
Friday, America heard from the victims’ families. Through their grief, they still managed to live out the things Pastor Clementa Pinckney taught them at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. With their statements, they taught our ‘leaders’ how to lead. Citizens showed us how to unite our nation. Hillary and President Obama failed miserably at uniting the nation.
To be fair, not all political leaders failed in striking a uniting tone. Ben Carson shined in his attempt to be a uniter:
CARSON: The heart of the matter is not guns. The heart of the matter is the heart, the heart and soul of people. This young man didn’t wake up yesterday and suddenly turn into a maniac. Clearly there have been things in his background, in his upbringing that led to the type of mentality that would allow him to do something like this. And one of the things that I think we really need to start concentrating on in this country is once again instilling the right kinds of values, particularly in our young people. We’re so busy giving away all of our values and principles for the sake of political correctness that we have people floating around out there with no solid foundation of beliefs.
Guns aren’t the problem. They’re inanimate objects, capable of inflicting incredible pain or stopping senseless violence. Guns are just the tool of choice used by evil people to destroy human life.
Thankfully, the people representing the victims of this senseless violence understand that. I’d rejoice if our ‘leaders’ figured that out instead of their grandstanding.
Technorati: Emanuel African Methodist Episcopalian Church, Clementa Pinckney, Christianity, Forgiveness, Tywanza Sanders, Bible Study, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Career Politicians, Ben Cason, Statesmanship
Hillary’s panderfest on the Charleston shootings was a portrait of the type of ‘leadership’ she’d bring to the White House. Here’s what she said that’s dangerous:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton challenged the nation Thursday to take new actions to curb gun violence in her first reactions to the shooting inside a historically black Charleston, S.C., church that left nine dead.
“How many people do we need to see cut down before we act?” she asked, during a summit of elected and appointed Latino politicians meeting in Las Vegas. She began by saying that her thoughts and prayers were with the victims and their families in the shooting, before turning to a broader discussion of police. “So as we mourn and as our hearts break a little more, and as we send this message of solidarity that we will not forsake those who have been victimized by gun violence, this time we have to find answers together,” Clinton said.
That thinking is straight from the progressives’ surely-we-must-do-something chapter of their strategy handbook. It’s filled with emotion, which is understandable. Unfortunately, it’s equally devoid of constructive ideas, much less solutions.
This is essentially Hillary’s “I feel your pain” moment. That’s nice but saying that we have to curb gun violence, then not offering a solution is cruel.
Let’s unwind this a bit. The alleged murderer was a bigot who’d been in trouble with the law relatively frequently. That’s indisputable, verified fact. He’d gotten kicked out of a Charleston shopping mall and told never to return. Instead of never returning, he tried returning, only to get thrown out again.
His punishment for these actions? His father bought him a handgun for his birthday. There are laws already on the books that prohibit criminals from owning guns. Would another law covering the same thing matter? I’m betting it wouldn’t. BTW, I’d prosecute the father for supplying the weapon to his obviously deranged son.
Remember that the alleged murderer was a bigot. He read skinhead literature, too. One of his friends said that he’d planned this “for 6 months.” There’s another human failure. If this friend knew this, why didn’t he contact authorities?
Finally, what gun control legislation would’ve prevented this heinous crime? We know that gun control laws that’ve been proposed in the last 5 years wouldn’t have stopped Sandy Hook or Aurora or the shooting of Gabby Giffords.
The first step to solving these violence issues is for Democrats to stop blaming the guns. The people who’ve done these killings are violent individuals. Until you change people’s hearts, no laws will matter.
In typical progressive do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do fashion, Russ Feingold has exposed himself as just another typical career politician:
According to a report earlier this week by the Journal Sentinel’s Dan Bice, Feingold’s political action committee, Progressives United PAC, bought 100 leather-bound copies of the ex-senator’s 2013 book, along with 1,000 hardcover copies. Feingold also received $77,000 in salary from both the PAC and its nonprofit companion.
Of course, Feingold’s act for years has been not having an act. As a champion of campaign finance reform, he has consistently condemned the pernicious effects of money in politics. But evidently his distaste for campaign cash wasn’t enough to keep him from bathing his cronies in greenbacks.
The PAC was created with the stated goal of “directly and indirectly supporting candidates who stand up for our progressive ideals.” But instead, it appears it existed almost solely to support salaries for Feingold loyalists who lost their jobs after his 2010 loss to businessman Ron Johnson. Bice calculated that nearly 90% of the $7.1 million raised between January of 2011 and March of 2015 went to fundraising or staff salaries, including $317,823 to Feingold’s former chief of staff, Mary Irvine. All told, Feingold, Irvine and eight former staffers drew salaries or consulting fees from the fund.
We’re talking about the same principles as the Clinton Foundation except on a significantly smaller scale. The Clinton Foundation was essentially a holding spot for Hillary’s campaign-in-waiting:
The media’s focus is on Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, and whether she took official actions to benefit her family’s global charity. But the mistake is starting from the premise that the Clinton Foundation is a “charity.” What’s clear by now is that this family enterprise was set up as a global shakedown operation, designed to finance and nurture the Clintons’ continued political ambitions. It’s a Hillary super PAC that throws in the occasional good deed.
Other than in scale and the Foundation’s “occasional good deed”, how is Feigold’s PAC different than the Clinton Foundation?
This is a big deal. It isn’t that progressives will abandon Feingold. It’s that independents that thought of him as a straight shooter will abandon him. This will still be a featured race in 2016 but this Journal-Sentinel article will definitely hurt Feingold.
Laurel Beager’s interview with Sen. Bakk highlights Sen. Bakk’s disconnect with reality. Nothing demonstrates that better than this paragraph:
Some of the disappointment of the session may stem from high expectations going into the session, he said. “We came off a tremendously successful biennium in 2013-14 with a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate and Democratic governor. We did things that were historic.”
After the all-DFL government, voters threw out the DFL House majority. They didn’t see it as “a tremendously successful biennium,” which is the only opinion that matters. Further, Speaker Daudt is viewed as the most popular legislator in the state from either party. It isn’t really close.
That’s especially true considering the fact that DFL senators tried throwing Bakk out as Senate Majority Leader during Friday night’s special session. Add into that equation the fact that some progressive bloggers started a petition to remove Sen. Bakk as Majority Leader. That petition had 584 signatures 24 hours later.
Sen. Bakk survived the hostile takeover but that’s hardly proof that he’s heading into a calm 2016 session. The same bloggers that wanted Bakk gone as Senate Majority Leader were upset with the news that he’d negotiated a tax relief package with Sen. David Hann, the Senate Minority Leader. After sessions like that, it isn’t surprising that Sen. Bakk got out of St. Paul in a hurry:
After Sen. Majority Leader Tom Bakk traded his suit for jeans, got in his car and headed north at 6 a.m. Saturday following adjournment of the special session, he said he became incredibly emotional.
“You’ve been so wrapped up in everything for five and half months you can’t help but reflect on what happened, what didn’t happen and the things you could have done differently to get maybe a little better outcome. Because it can always be better,” he said. Three and a half hours later, when he arrives at his home in Cook, he’s emotionally exhausted. The leader of the Minnesota Senate must be deep in the trenches of the session and he said he’s emotionally and physically exhausted.
He then heads for some time at the lake cabin. “I can get away from the phones, the mail, and just watch a bobber for a couple days,” he said.
For someone who’s been ambushed and who’s done some ambushing, I can imagine him wanting nothing to do with St. Paul for a while.
The last 2 nights, Megyn Kelly has featured Amherst University’s decision to expel a student after a woman accused him of rape. Here’s the video of Monday night’s segment:
There’s no excuse for what Amherst University did. First, the fact that a woman waited 2 years before ‘reporting’ a rape should’ve been a hint to Amherst that this case should be viewed with a healthy bit of skepticism. Second, after the alleged rape was reported, the female student’s texts were recovered from a third party. They showed that the female student did more than consent to having sex. The texts showed she initiated sexual contact. In fact, it went further than that. After having sex with the man she accused of raping her, she texted another male student and asked him to “entertain” her.
It’s disturbing is that Amherst didn’t reverse the male student’s ejection from Amherst after the texts were discovered. What’s more disturbing is that the accused student wasn’t allowed representation. Further, it was against US Department of Education rules to let that female student to be cross-examined by the male student’s attorney because it might be a traumatic experience for the accuser.
This unnamed male student has hired legal counsel. They’re likely to file a lawsuit against Amherst and the Department of Education for violating the student’s due process rights. If ever there was a slam dunk case, this is it. Amherst didn’t show any interest in the accused student’s constitutional rights. The accused student was stripped of his ability to defend himself. When exculpatory evidence was discovered and presented to Amherst, it was treated as if it didn’t exist.
This is the video of last night’s segment on the Amherst story:
That the US Department of Education put together these guidelines that leave students essentially defenseless against accusers is disgusting. Brit Hume is right. It’s an article of faith that there’s a culture of rape on college campuses. The studies that purport to show this epidemic have been thoroughly discredited. Another thing that’s disgusting is that the US Department of Education would implement a plan that ignores students’ constitutional rights. The DOE didn’t water down the accused students’ constitutional rights. The US DOE just threw these students’ constitutional rights out entirely.
Technorati: Amherst University, US Department of Education, Culture of Rape, Dear Colleague Letter, Due Process Rights, Rights of the Accused, Cross-Examination, Exculpatory Evidence, Brit Hume, Megyn Kelly
Kirsten Powers’ latest column is, being charitable, misguided:
Pope Francis will release a teaching letter, known as an encyclical, on Thursday that’s thought to be the first in the church’s history to focus on the environment. A leaked version of the document endorses the notion that human activity contributes to climate change and that this menace disproportionately harms the poor.
Many U.S. conservatives are not pleased, believing that that the Vatican is blindly bending to elite opinion and stepping out of its lane. Leave the climate change issue to the politicians, they argue. Some conservative Catholics have expressed concern to me that Pope Francis is pulling a “reverse Galileo” by endorsing science that could turn out to be wrong, thus harming the credibility of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps there should be more concern in the alternative. If the science is correct, then how would the church’s silence in obeisance to conservative climate skepticism enhance its credibility? After all, the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced in 2014 that the scientific consensus that “climate change is happening, and human activity is the cause” is as airtight as the “science linking smoking to lung and cardiovascular diseases.”
Climate change isn’t science. It’s conjecture built on models that don’t use accurate temperature data. The process itself is flawed, too. They don’t use the double blind procedure. That’s the gold standard in scientific testing because it ensures that the person who does the data analysis doesn’t do the data collection or inputting the data.
As for this consensus, it’s overrated when the scientists are corrupt. This is the Hockey Stick graph used in the IPCC’s report:
Here’s the modified hockey stick graph used in a later release of the IPCC report after scientists objected to the first Hockey Stick graph:
Those graphs don’t look like each other. At all. So much for consensus and the airtight nature of the science.
The Catholic Church’s credibility won’t crumble because of Pope Francis’ encyclical. Pope Francis’ credibility, though, is already struggling. Thus far, he seems more like a far left activist than a pontiff.
Technorati: Pope Francis, Encyclical, Climate Change, Junk Science, Hockey Stick Graph, Political Activism
Rep. Jennifer Schultz’s op-ed is yet another op-ed that discounts Gov. Dayton’s disastrous decisions:
On Friday, the Minnesota Legislature held a special session that concluded a disappointing year. Like most Minnesotans, I was not pleased the Legislature was unable to conclude its business on time or with the content of the resulting compromise bills.
Let’s modify Rep. Schultz’s statement to fit with reality. Here’s what it would say if it was accurate:
On Friday, the Minnesota Legislature held a special session that concluded a disappointing year. Like most Minnesotans, I was not pleased that Gov. Dayton wasted the last week of the regular session negotiating 2 budget bills. When Speaker Daudt and Sen. Bakk booted Gov. Dayton from the room that Friday afternoon, they negotiated and finalized the other 4 budget bills in less than 2 hours. That says everything about who’s to blame for the special session.
Let’s be blunt. There were rumors swirling around the Capitol the last 2 weeks of the session that the DFL thought that they could win the government shutdown if it happened. Gov. Dayton spent an entire week fighting for bills that went nowhere. When Gov. Dayton left the room, Speaker Daudt and Sen. Bakk finished the budget in what was left of that Friday afternoon.
Most disappointing was the ongoing failure to address the issue of transportation infrastructure. In greater Minnesota, we are used to living at the end of a very long road to anywhere, but we would like that road to be safe and efficient for our businesses and people. A bipartisan commission worked hard to develop a plan to solve the problems that a decade of neglect of transportation infrastructure left us and to create the new infrastructure we need to prosper in the 21st century. This is critical for the economic growth of the state and especially of our area but has been derailed by shortsighted demands for a free lunch and refusals to create the revenue streams needed.
The DFL’s insistence that another tax increase was required stopped transportation dead in its tracks. The Republicans’ plan showed that a tax increase wasn’t required. There isn’t a compromise position on this issue. There will either be a tax increase or there won’t. When a tax increase isn’t needed, taxes shouldn’t be increased.
Further, Gov. Dayton, Sen. Bakk, Sen. Dibble and Move MN pushed a plan that didn’t prioritize fixing Minnesota’s potholed roads. I won’t shed a tear that the DFL coalition’s plan didn’t pass. Gov. Dayton and the DFL should’ve listened to the people, not the lobbyists.
If Rep. Schultz wants to blame someone for this session, she should blame Gov. Dayton.
I will be on Ox in the Afternoon today at 3:10 to talk about the attempted ousting of Sen. Bakk as Senate Majority Leader. Follow this link to listen to KNSI’s livestream if you live outside KNSI’s usual broadcasting range.
Hillary Clinton is running for president to be, in her words, the champion for everyday people. Anyone with more than 2 brain cells rubbing together knows that’s BS but it’s her campaign so she gets to pick the mantra, regardless of how pathetic it sounds. Condi Rice isn’t running for president but she’s light years ahead of Hillary in terms of dignity:
When Condoleezza Rice headlined a 2009 fundraising luncheon for the Boys and Girls Club of Long Beach, she collected a $60,000 speaking fee, then donated almost all of it back to the club, according to multiple sources familiar with the club’s finances.
That’s typical Condi. It’s what people expect from a woman of such stunning dignity. Here’s what we can expect from Hillary:
Hillary Clinton was not so generous to the small charity, which provides after-school programs to underprivileged children across the Southern California city. Clinton collected $200,000 to speak at the same event five years later, but she donated nothing back to the club, which raised less than half as much from Clinton’s appearance as from Rice’s, according to the sources and tax filings. Instead, Clinton steered her speaking fee to her family’s own sprawling $2 billion charity.
The politician that supposedly wants to be the champion of everyday people apparently puts a higher priority on gouging charities and raking in the cash for her political operation/charity.
That’s quite the contrast between the elitist politician and the gracious diplomat.
Hillary’s making millions on the backs of charities doesn’t speak well of her, though it definitely gives a new meaning to the old cliché that charity begins at home.
Couple Hillary’s unquenchable thirst to be filthy rich with her paranoia with the media and you’ve got Richard Nixon in a pantsuit. Here’s what her campaign did to a reporter who wrote the unflattering truth about Clinton Inc.:
A DNC spinmeister later told Megyn Kelly that it was just a mix-up with the reporter’s credentials, something that Ms. Kelly didn’t believe. Mr. Zimmerman, a loyal DNC activist, said that the Clintons don’t have a history of banning reporters. While I don’t disagree with that statement, I know that the Clintons, Hillary especially, have a history of being vindictive and of paying their political enemies back for telling the unflattering truth about them.
Here’s the important questions that Americans must ask themselves about Hillary:
- Do we want a president that shakes down charities while lining the pockets of their own charity?
- Do we want a president that’s vindictive towards a reporter after that reporter writes unflattering truths about the politician?
- Do we trust a politician that has a history of being vindictive and secretive to be trustworthy and transparent if elected to be president?
I’ll answer that last question: I wouldn’t trust Hillary to be trustworthy if she achieves her ultimate ego trip of being president. She’d be like Nixon if that happened.
It’s clear that the DSCC will do everything possible to defeat Ron Johnson, (R-WI). Unfortunately for them, Russ Feingold is known for just one thing: the BCRA, aka McCain-Feingold. Russ Feingold is half of the dimwitted duo that wanted to restrict people’s ability to voice their worries about politicians during an election cycle. Let’s highlight that.
Russ Feingold thinks that government should have the right to restrict what citizens say and when they can say things. That’s because Russ Feingold is one of those politicians that think they know what’s best and that citizens have to be told what to do for their own benefit.
That’s the epitome of elitism. It’s breathtaking that elitists want to protect us uppity peasants from ourselves.
We need straight shooters like Ron Johnson in the Senate. Follow this link to contribute to Sen. Johnson’s campaign. Re-electing Sen. Johnson should be one of the Republicans’ highest priorities in 2016.
Technorati: Ron Johnson, First Amendment, TEA Party Conservative, Republicans, Russ Feingold, McCain-Feingold, Censorship, Elitism, Democrats, Election 2016
